A UV Window on Transients with ULTRASAT

ULTRASAT is a planned UV space telescope with an unprecedented field of view of 200 square degrees, to be launched in 2025. It will discover transient phenomena that were not observationally accessible in large numbers until now, such as supernova shock breakout and prompt emission from mergers involving neutron stars. These discoveries promise to solve open puzzles in massive-star evolution and explosion, and in neutron-star merger physics. ULTRASAT will also detect tidal disruption events to larger redshifts than accessible today, shining new light on the supermassive black-hole population and their associated accretion phenomena. I will present the mission, the science it is expected to do, and the new insights we are looking to glean from it.